MPLA

The People's Movement for the Liberation of Angola (MPLA) is a democratic socialist political party in Angola, founded on 10 December 1956. The MPLA was founded as the merger of underground communist parties in Angola, then a colony of Portugal, and the MPLA joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and Cape Verde in beginning a campaign of armed struggle against Portuguese colonial rule in 1961. During the 1970s, the MPLA suffered heavy losses in its guerrilla struggle and briefly broke up into factions, but it maintained control of the capital of Luanda and the coastal oil fields after the Portuguese government decided to grant Angola its independence in 1975. The MPLA would proceed to fight against the conservative FNLA and UNITA parties in the Angolan Civil War, which would rage on until 2002. By 1980, the MPLA had driven the UNITA forces into the bush and forced the South African forces to withdraw, and the MPLA received support from Cuba and the Soviet Union. In 1990, at the end of the Cold War, the MPLA abandoned Marxism-Leninism in favor of socialism and social democracy, and it dominated the government after a 1992 peace treaty. In 2012, it held 175/220 National Assembly seats.